According to the latest Government figures, in the nine months up to December 2025, more than 6 million tests and procedures were carried out at 159 Community Diagnostic Centres across England.

These CDCs are leading a massive change in healthcare, and MTX is at the forefront of the revolution; designing and creating the new facilities. Chiso Simioni is Architectural Lead in the pre-construction team at MTX Contracts Ltd and one of more than a dozen specialist healthcare architects in-house. Here, he talks about the excitement and satisfaction that comes from making a fundamental change within the sector.

“Whenever we are awarded a CDC project, the first priority is making the design fit and most importantly work well within the chosen location. The whole concept of taking healthcare beyond the confines of a hospital setting means you immediately get a different perspective.

“New CDCs are frequently located in shopping locations or right at the centre of towns or neighbourhoods, so you already have the infrastructure to make access much easier than many hospitals, which have historically been located outside those busy areas because of the huge space needed for the development.”

MTX was recently awarded the contract for a CDC in Pitsea in Essex, which will replace an aging community centre and library in the heart of the town’s shopping area, and occupy the same footprint.

Importantly, in addition to providing the testing and diagnostic facilities which are now pretty much the standard for the CDC model, the final MTX design also incorporates a community meeting space, library and a gym – replicating but improving the community facilities that previously occupied the space.

“You stand at the entrance to the site, and you are surrounded by car parking, shops and chain stores, which means people can do their shopping and get potentially life-saving tests on the same trip into town.

“Not only is it convenient, but we believe it is tremendously reassuring for people, by making what can be a stressful and quite scary medical test part of their everyday lives.”

MTX has become recognised as an expert in the rapid and cost-effective delivery of CDCs, applying Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), including the offsite manufacture of structural steel units and MEP systems which are assembled on site.  The structural units are precisely engineered to be craned into place creating a weatherproof building within few weeks of the site preparation, rather than months.

The streamlining of build process alongside proven project management expertise means faster, greener and safer completion with accompanying cost savings.

But there are no cutting corners. MTX works closely with the Trust’s clinical and estates teams throughout the planning and consultation process, to ensure that their priorities are met with the creation of a fully compliant and permanent new healthcare asset.

“We are experts at designing and building new facilities, but the Trust teams are the experts at clinical care and meeting the needs of patients and staff. We are, at our core, a construction company, which means that when we design a new CDC, we are also building it in our heads – using both MMC or traditional processes where they are best suited, to anticipate and overcome any issues in advance, rather than midway through the build on site.   

“There are certainly commonalities in what a CDC must provide, but we never fall into the trap of ‘one size fits all.’  Every project is treated as a unique design exercise, but our experience and expertise help to fast-track the design and build.”

MTX last year won an award for their simultaneous creation of two CDCs, built concurrently at Skegness and Lincoln, which together delivered more than 100,000 tests and patient procedures in their first year. MTX is now extending the Lincoln CDC to offer yet more planned care and diagnostic testing for the local community, including some elective orthopaedic clinics, which will relocate from the Outpatients department at Lincoln County Hospital. The company is also in the early stages of creating a new CDC on the former Boston football ground, which is due to receive its first patients in Spring 2027 – another project for the Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group (LCHG).

“We are there to create the structure around the service, not alter the service to fit the structure. There is always a design brief that will be driven by the Trust and by the budget, and we must accommodate the design within the available space.

“Everything must fit into a specific envelope, but at CDCs the site is often more open and offers greater flexibility – for example, Lincoln and Skegness were industrial sites, and redevelopment plans will see employment areas and coffee shops grow around them.”

Daren Fradgley, LCHG Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Integration Officer, said: “The feedback we’ve had from patients about our community diagnostic centres in Lincoln and Skegness has been overwhelmingly positive and we hope to replicate this in Boston.

“Community diagnostic centres make it quicker and easier to access the tests patients need as part of their care. The additional testing capacity away from our busy hospital sites means these planned appointments are less likely to be delayed by emergencies, and vice versa, leaves space on our hospital lists for patients who need tests quickly on our wards and within urgent and emergency care services.”

Effective and efficient patient flow is always important in creating new clinical facilities, but perhaps more so in CDCs. These centres are about getting the test or procedure done in a way that benefits and comforts the patient but also ensures that in the vast majority of cases, they can go home that same day.

“The aim is to create a patient flow model that is both smooth and efficient – not just passing from one waiting room into another. Patients are there for a procedure – MRI, CT, Endoscopy whatever, so the idea is to have a linear movement of people: arrive, procedure, discharge – to achieve throughput. Everyone goes home at the end of the day – staff and patients – almost like an outpatients facility.”

MTX must make it as easy as possible for patients to get the services they need, as well as make it easier for the staff to deliver those services. In feedback from staff, one nurse highlighted just how much she enjoyed working in a CDC because she did not feel encumbered by the massive machine of the hospital surrounding it. 

The fact that the CDC is usually a standalone new building also often means the design can incorporate more natural light into waiting and transit areas, which is proven to make patients and staff feel more comfortable and less stressed.

“You want to make it welcoming. No clinical boxes – a current trend is towards softer and more tactile surfaces that maintain hygiene standards and durability, and character reconnecting with natural elements. There is a trend to reintroduce wood effects, and soft earthy colours as opposed to pastels – employing natural materials within the palette.

“That move towards a more naturalistic appearance can also impact landscaping and external works. So in the adjacent landscape, we might prefer using paving rather than tarmac or concrete, and gabion baskets, rather than all concrete retaining walls. At a recent project in Milford, the building sort of climbs out of the ground, and plants are colonising the walls to soften the hard surfaces. It all depends on budget and what the client wants to achieve.

“MTX is particularly good at delivering value because of the efficiency of our processes and working practices, but it is still a family company, so perhaps our sensibilities are more upfront that massive corporate entities.

“We want to leave a legacy of good – the buildings we create will be an integral part of the community, and that is especially true of Community Diagnostic Centres.”